Problems with Many Worlds Interpretation

[Ken G]

We already have wonderful examples of the benefit of 'observer in the system'. The symmetries of the laws of mechanics put severe constraints on what sorts of quantities are physically meaningful... but only on the hypothesis that observers obey the laws of mechanics as well.

Indeed, symmetries are an excellent access point to both the value, and the drawbacks, of rationalistic thinking. Symmetries are the rationalist dream-- reasoning by what has to be correct, the straight line between two points. This is also why rationalistic thinking is so powerful, and is responsible for every physical theory we have ever had. But it's also the "poison pill" of rationalism-- because symmetries were made to be broken. Consider the history of symmetries-- symmetry with time was once seen as fundamental, but then came the Big Bang model and symmetry with time was seen as only an effective symmetry. Time reversal symmetry seems quite fundamental in physics, but not in thermodynamics. Parity reversal was promising, then combinations like CT. You know the story, the history of science is a tale of one sliding rationalistic anchor right after another. This doesn't mean the rationalistic anchors are bad-- they are the very stuff of physics theories, one just needn't take them too seriously.

As for the observers obeying the laws, relativity has some nice comments on this. Relativity is a different kind of physical law, it is a meta-law-- a law that constrains laws. That right there tells you that there is something different about the role of observers in physical theory. It's not that the observer has to obey the laws, it is that truths about observers constrain the laws those observers could ever find useful. I see relativity as a kind of flashlight for looking for your keys-- it is what saves you from having to look under the lamppost, because relativity insures that the "lamp" comes with you. We look for laws like that, we need laws like that, but their purpose is to explain observations-- it is the observations that are the rock of physics, and we should expect the laws we use to understand them to constantly change as the observations broaden (but never change).

But if we try to say that the observers aren't part of the system and aren't described by the laws of SR, we no longer have a compelling argument -- there's no longer any reason why simultaneity must be relative for observers.

We cannot have that observers are part of the system in SR. Just look at the postulate: "the laws of physics shall be the same for all (inertial-- fixed in GR) observers." The postulate requires a definition of an observer be already in place, and then the meta-law constrains all the laws that could possibly be useful to an empiricist. The idea of relativity is just saying "let empiricism be an objective approach, and seek laws that can be useful within that approach", and the rest is about which brand of relativity accomplishes that (the constant c brand, for now). The observer is not "part of the system" there, or we wouldn't need relativity in the first place, we'd just have the laws of systems, and observers would automatically be covered by them, rather than appearing directly in the meta-law.

 

[Dmitry67]

But collapse is what we perceive-- it does not require a cause.

No. We don't perceive a collapse. To perceive a collapse one must at first observe a fuzzy combination of dead and alive cats, and then how it switches to a definite outcome. Nobody had ever observed it, so your claim is wrong.

For the same reason nobody had ever perceived a neutrino, instead, scientists perceive a list of numbers and retrospectively decode the behavior of the neutrino. In both cases it is the same, we perceive a shadow and we try to decode how an object look like.

 

[Hurkyl]

I think I see your point and I think it's a great example indeed. This is the connection between observer invariance or covariance and symmetries in nature that effectively encode the laws of nature.

But I think I've expressed my view on this before (here I think I am far more radical then Ken though).

There are two ways to understand this, and my hunch is that you adopt the first, I adopt the second. Both solve the problem you address but in different way. Way(1) is the realist way, way(2) is the solipsist way.

It's only a problem if you postulate that observers are external, which I don't. It's an empirical fact that I and all other observers obey Newton's laws^* (in its domain of validity^**). If there was any evidence that observers did not obey Newton's laws, scientists would be studying said observers to look for new physics.

*: Or, at least, something indistinguishable from them
**: I mean if we avoid questions like the topic of the energy levels of electrons in atoms

It's not that an observer must obey Newton's laws -- it's that we have mountains of empirical evidence for Newton's laws. The claim that observers cannot observe an absolute notion of 'at rest' is relative is merely a prediction of Newton's laws. That it is borne out in reality reflects the high level of confidence we have in Newton's laws, and that it would be violated is both very unlikely and very interesting.


Aside: symmetry is not a restriction on observers. The argument that there is no absolute notion of 'at rest' is as follows:

Consider the claim that there is some proposition P(v) of an observers velocity (v) with the property that

• P(0) = true
• P(v) = false if v is not zero

P can be thought of as the proposition that the observer is truly at rest.

We could apply a Galilean boost that adds v₀ to velocity, and we'd have a new proposition P' with the property

• P'(v₀) = true
• P'(v) = false if v is not v₀

(I've used the fact 'true', 'false', '=', 'not', and 'if ... then ...' are all invariants)

This is all still fine. We haven't contradicted anything -- P' is a different proposition than P. Nor have we refuted the claim -- this just means "at rest" corresponds to a velocity of v₀ in this representation.

But if the proposition P was actually constructed entirely out of physical laws (or any other invariants under symmetry), we must have P' = P, and so we derive a contradiction:

false = P(v₀) = P'(v₀) = P(0) = true​

 

[Hurkyl]

I think Bohr's points on this matter are clear-- there is no quantum realm, and physics is what we can say about nature.

The "quantum realm" is the part of nature that we talk about with wave-functions and unitary evolution.

Whatever ontological beliefs you may have about physics in general, you still have to recognize that collapse-based quantum physics posits that there are some things you can talk about using wave-functions and unitary evolution, some things that you can't talk about that way, and there is an interface between the two that operates via collapses and the Born rule.

The "quantum realm" is, by definition, the aspect you can talk about using wave-functions and unitary evolution.

it is the subject/object dichotomy that is central to all scientific models because it is the beating heart of the scientific method.

Your version anyways. (the phrase 'subject/object' still doesn't mean very much to me, so I'm guessing at the meaning)

I, personally, have never seen "now, make sure you have a subject/object dichotomy in your philosophical beliefs" listed in the steps of the scientific method.

Nor have I ever recall seeing anyone justify making such a dichotomy -- they just assert "do it that way".

But if you're right -- if subject/object dichotomy really is part of what "empiricism" means -- then tell me this: why should I care? Why am I not better off adopting a new philosophical position that doesn't insist on the dichotomy but is otherwise the same as empiricism?

CI is nothing but the interpretation that is required by empiricism, with no added bells or whistles to make it seem like a more rationalistic world.

The cut is a bell and/or whistle.

Indeed, they were both throwbacks to old ways--

CI is a throwback to definiteness -- to non-parmness. Well, it's not really a throwback, it's more of a carry-over from classical mechanics.

Everett is a throwback to ancient Greek rationalism, in which the truth is the mathematics.

This doesn't make sense. You keep saying it, but it doesn't make sense. The idea is that

[physics] is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.

Everett wasn't trying to operate in some strange Platonic world of absolute truth. Everett was taking our general analysis of nature, and finding a way applying it to understand how the universe behaves.

The difference is between "I observed X" and "X was observed." Science always treats those sentences as identical, hence the problem.

By consistency of observation, it's not a problem -- if "O observed X" is a proposition independent of O (i.e. that "O observed X"="O' observed X" whenever both sides are well-defined), then there is no need to include O in the proposition.

 

[Hurkyl]

Consider the history of symmetries-- symmetry with time was once seen as fundamental, but then came the Big Bang model and symmetry with time was seen as only an effective symmetry.

I'm not aware of anything in BBT that suggests you can't reverse the arrow of time and get a big crunch.

Time reversal symmetry seems quite fundamental in physics, but not in thermodynamics.

Eh? It's there in thermodynamics too. It's just as ridiculously unlikely for entropy to decrease with time running forwards as it is to decrease with time running backwards.

Symmetry of the laws and symmetry of the physical configuration are very different things.

You know the story, the history of science is a tale of one sliding rationalistic anchor right after another.

... and this suddenly comes out of nowhere.

You do get the idea that our confidence in pieces of knowledge depends on empirical verification? And when new experiments are done, our confidence in some piece of knowledge can diminish? Or that our confidence in it may be surpassed by our confidence in some new piece of knowledge? And even when surpassed, our old piece of knowledge is still useful? That working with reason doesn't entail having some strange idea of absolute platonic truth and being trapped in a cycle of building a house of cards and having to completely scrap it for a new house of cards?

 

[Fra]

It's only a problem if you postulate that observers are external, which I don't.

a) I think we use "external" in different ways. I try to take very seriously that observers are real physical systems, an not just sitting in some mathematical realm. So the observers are indeed in this sense "inside observers".

Note that this is not taken seriously in mainstream physics. But then it's no wonder that pretty much the only observables anyone has defined in quantum gravity theories are scattering matrices where the observer is dismissed to the boundary of the system at infinity. I see this as a symptom that is greatly amplifier in QG, but that is rooted in the foundations of QM. The very point is that QM (not just interpretations) are not respecting thte fact that the observer only encodes finite amount of information. This IMO forces the conclusions that any inferrable laws can't possibly be timeless platonic. They are more like interaction tools.

b) However, the distinction you seem to have problems with (which I think is unavoidable) is between the observed and and observer. Actually this distinction is in my view simply follows from the decision perspective that what the observer KNOWs is distinct from what the observers is trying to guess. The whole quest is; to predict the future given a memory of the past. Here I like to cite Zurek which said "what the observer IS; is indistinguishable from what the observer KNOWS".

This means that the distinction observer vs observed; is simply the distinction between what you know and what you don't know.

I always see "the system" as a black box, from the point of view of the observer. Actually, the complete picture means that the observers entire environment is a black box. The decomposition of the environment into a small subsystem and the remainder is artificial, except in obvious cases where the observer effectivel controls and monitors the entire boundary of the system - like in a particle collider.

(in its domain of validity^**)

Yes. This was part of my point as well, but I think this requires more attention than a footnote ;)

You can put the same thing is two equivalent ways, either you say that the theory constraints the observers for which it applies, or holds for all observers "in it'd domain of validity", which is just two sides of the same coin).

/Fredik

 

[Ken G]

No. We don't perceive a collapse.

Actually, we do. "Collapse" doesn't mean a single thing other than "definite state of a subsystem."

To perceive a collapse one must at first observe a fuzzy combination of dead and alive cats, and then how it switches to a definite outcome.

If that were true, neither Bohr nor Heisenberg would have held to their own ideas.

In both cases it is the same, we perceive a shadow and we try to decode how an object look like.

Certainly, the "neutrino" concept is a rationalist notion, no question there.

 

[Ken G]

Your version anyways. (the phrase 'subject/object' still doesn't mean very much to me, so I'm guessing at the meaning)

No, it is not "my version." Go look up "scientific method", provide any text you find, and I will gladly point out where the subject/object dichotomy appears in that text. I'm sure you could too. The "subject" is the scientist, the "object" is the experiment. Now find me some science that doesn't make that dichotomy, unless you count psychology as science.

I, personally, have never seen "now, make sure you have a subject/object dichotomy in your philosophical beliefs" listed in the steps of the scientific method.

Then you have chosen to overlook it, and need to try a little harder. Again, find any text you like on the subject of the scientific method.

Nor have I ever recall seeing anyone justify making such a dichotomy -- they just assert "do it that way".

Yes, it is quite easy to overlook what we are doing. So what? So we shouldn't notice what we are doing?

But if you're right -- if subject/object dichotomy really is part of what "empiricism" means -- then tell me this: why should I care? Why am I not better off adopting a new philosophical position that doesn't insist on the dichotomy but is otherwise the same as empiricism?

Because you risk failure.

The cut is a bell and/or whistle.

To a rationalist, yes.

CI is a throwback to definiteness -- to non-parmness. Well, it's not really a throwback, it's more of a carry-over from classical mechanics.

No, definiteness is what we perceive. You are trying very hard to ignore that fact, but it is the crux of empiricism. Science is built on the back of definite outcomes to experiments, and only the extreme rationalist modifies that to "science is built on the back of the appearance of definite outcomes." The word "appearance" in that sentence is not falsifiable, but whenever an appearance is absolutely consistent, there is no difference between appearance and fact.

Everett wasn't trying to operate in some strange Platonic world of absolute truth. Everett was taking our general analysis of nature, and finding a way applying it to understand how the universe behaves.

That sounds like someone describing a theory, not an interpretation of a theory.

By consistency of observation, it's not a problem -- if "O observed X" is a proposition independent of O (i.e. that "O observed X"="O' observed X" whenever both sides are well-defined), then there is no need to include O in the proposition.

It is necessary when X has no meaning without O, as in science.

 

[Ken G]

I'm not aware of anything in BBT that suggests you can't reverse the arrow of time and get a big crunch.

I wasn't referring to the arrow of time, but to the symmetry of time translation. I mentioned the arrow in a different context-- thermodynamics.

Eh? It's there in thermodynamics too. It's just as ridiculously unlikely for entropy to decrease with time running forwards as it is to decrease with time running backwards.

Yet the second law makes a very specific claim about the arrow of time. Yes, we have a law of physics, used constantly (indeed the patent office uses it daily), that breaks time reversal symmetry.

Symmetry of the laws and symmetry of the physical configuration are very different things.

Obviously. The second law is a law, it doesn't require specification of anything about the system.

... and this suddenly comes out of nowhere.

You can't see the slide of rationalistic anchors in the history of science? I think you must be trying pretty hard not to.

You do get the idea that our confidence in pieces of knowledge depends on empirical verification? And when new experiments are done, our confidence in some piece of knowledge can diminish? Or that our confidence in it may be surpassed by our confidence in some new piece of knowledge? And even when surpassed, our old piece of knowledge is still useful?

Certainly. And none of that has anything to do with those "rationalistic anchors" that litter the history of science. There's nothing wrong with them, indeed they are essential-- until you take them literally, like the postulates of quantum mechanics.

That working with reason doesn't entail having some strange idea of absolute platonic truth and being trapped in a cycle of building a house of cards and having to completely scrap it for a new house of cards?

No, "working with reason" certainly doesn't require that, which is how Bohr and Heisenberg were able to do it too.

 

[Hurkyl]

Yet the second law makes a very specific claim about the arrow of time. Yes, we have a law of physics, used constantly (indeed the patent office uses it daily), that breaks time reversal symmetry.

I realized this part needed clarification after I had already left.

One thing we have that breaks the symmetry is strong prior odds on the past being in a low entropy state. Given knowledge that the entropy an hour ago is less than it is now, it's considerably more likely that the entropy of five minutes ago is somewhere in-between than any of the other alternatives.

(conversely, if we somehow had knowledge that some specific point in the future was in a low entropy state, the second law would have to reverse somewhere along the way -- it would just be too unlikely to predict otherwise)But, of course, I don't know how we got knowledge of the past being in a lower entropy state to begin with. (Nor, of course, have I argued that searching for violations of time reversal is a worthwhile pursuit in physics)

 

[Ken G]

One thing we have that breaks the symmetry is strong prior odds on the past being in a low entropy state. Given knowledge that the entropy an hour ago is less than it is now, it's considerably more likely that the entropy of five minutes ago is somewhere in-between than any of the other alternatives.

The second law of thermodynamics is a classic example of how human intelligence interacts with our own laws. There is really no such thing as entropy, in a physical sense, the system just goes from one state to another. All the same, we can tell which way the movie is running quite easily, because the concept of time comes from us in the first place-- from what we choose to care about. We choose to care about things that change with time in a recognizable way, we care about various types of information. We "prepare the system", and watch what happens next. The way we think about reality has an arrow to it, but a universe without intelligence cannot establish any arrow to time. This is what I mean about the duality of the observer and the observed-- neither is a meaningful concept without the other. Bohr said it: physics is what we can say (using our intelligence and abilities to perceive) about nature. It's clear enough where physics comes from, just watch the process. But is it true outside of us, even to worlds in which we are neither present nor even possible? I don't think one can say that it is, without entering into a kind of pretense-- unfalsifiable, but pretense all the same.

 

[Ken G]

b) However, the distinction you seem to have problems with (which I think is unavoidable) is between the observed and and observer. Actually this distinction is in my view simply follows from the decision perspective that what the observer KNOWs is distinct from what the observers is trying to guess. The whole quest is; to predict the future given a memory of the past. Here I like to cite Zurek which said "what the observer IS; is indistinguishable from what the observer KNOWS".

That's an interesting way to frame the subject/object dichotomy-- the subject is what is taken as known, the object is the foray into the unknown. It resonates with your earlier points about the importance of "surprise" in anything we could call an actual interaction. I believe that is what both Parmenides, and the postulates of QM, missed-- that there is something very fundamental about doing science that involves not knowing the outcome of the experiment in advance, which we tend to overlook when we put all the stress on science as a predictive tool. Yes the goal of science is to be able to predict, but the act of doing science requires something that is not known, something that is the object, something that is "outside" the observer, or outside the axioms being used by the observer. This is a kind of fundamental paradox of science, related to the fact that every discovery opens a new frontier of questions, and the only mistake is thinking that the next answer is going to be an endpoint, a "TOE."

 

[Dmitry67]

Actually, we do. "Collapse" doesn't mean a single thing other than "definite state of a subsystem."

Sorry, but no.

Do you agree that observing (perceiving) car wreckage is not the same as observing a car crash?

For the very same reason observing the definite outcome is not the same as observing the collapse.

For example, in the 'mascoscopic realism' interpretation there are always definite outcomes. However, collapse in such theories is just a purely mathematical concept (without physical existence) which helps us to calculate probabilities of the macroscopic events. In other words, if you observe car wreckage, you can't be sure that there was a time when car was intact - it could be produced that way.

 

[Ken G]

Do you agree that observing (perceiving) car wreckage is not the same as observing a car crash?

Yes. But collapse is the wreckage. The crash is not observed in quantum mechanics.

For the very same reason observing the definite outcome is not the same as observing the collapse.

Yes, I know, that's why your concept of collapse is incorrect. Collapse is an outcome of a measurement. CI is empirical. If you see a red Porsche enter a tunnel, and enter the tunnel moments later to find a smashed red Porsche, you say the car crashed. That's quantum mechanics, that's how the term "collapse" is used in CI.

 

[Dmitry67]

No, based on a public definition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse

In quantum mechanics, wave function collapse (also called collapse of the state vector or reduction of the wave packet) is the phenomenon in which a wave function—initially in a superposition of several different possible eigenstates—appears to reduce to a single one of those states after interaction with an observer.

So it is process of transforming (A) initially in a superposition of several different possible eigenstates into (B) a single one

You perceive only (B), how can you claim (A)?
Contre-example: in classical mechanics, we observe only definite outcomes. Does it mean that collapse is a part of classical mechanics?

 

[Fra]

So it is process of transforming (A) initially in a superposition of several different possible eigenstates into (B) a single one

You perceive only (B), how can you claim (A)?

I see no problem in claiming (A). Not though that (A) is not an "event", (A) is simply a state. The information you have may simply give you a system "in superpositon". If this is the information the observer has then that's what he will "perceive".

But if I may rephrase the question. I sense that that bugs you is rather this: How can we by observing say the cat understand the process whereby you ARRIVE at at superposition in the first place? Since its seems that you never at one single "observation event" get one datapoint corresponding the superposition?

This is a more sensible question, and in MY view the answer is that a general STATE, is NOT "prepared" simply by a singular observation, it rather incorporates the history of the observer. When one "combines" rationally information that are not commuting, in a way where you weight the corresponding evidences properly you end up with a kind of "information state" that simply can't be described in terms of a classical probability distribution where the set of future events belong to a simple event space. You are forced into a new framework where there is instead different event spaces (corresponding to different operators) that generally aren't commuting.

I can give you one credit for critique and it's the fact that even though I personally have a picture of this in the context of my own work, there is to my knowledge no published papers which elaborates this in the way I think is needed to understand it. This is something that I'm working on and wish that one day I'll be able to publish this in the bigger context.

So the missing part is, how can we understand the construction of a superposition not just mathematically since htat's trivial, but in terms of an actual interaction history encoded and processed by a real observer.

This seems like a simple thing, but I've found in my own thinking that although this is a tiny brick in the big picture of trying to reconstruct measurement theory and understand interactions, it's very complicated since several deep issues meet here. For example, my understanding is that in order to properly understand how to defined the new logical AND and OR operators for these more general information structure one needs to understnad the WEIGHTS of the non-commuting informations and in the inference picture this is naturally nothing but the inertia of opinon. This deeply seems to be related to mass in physical interactions, and this is also observer dependent which means this simple thing necessarily couples with the origin of mass as well as a bigger picture of scale depdenent theories. This is why I haven't complete this yet. I've found it to be a somewhat tough problem for the main reason that it's impossible to isolate from other hard problems. So all problems needs to be solve in parallell.

/Fredrik

 

[Ken G]

No, based on a public definition:

That definition is just precisely what I said-- collapse is simply the detection of a definite state (when quantum formalism indicates a mixed state). That's it, that's a collapse. Nothing about "watching the transition from a superposition to a definite state", there is zero connotation in that definition that we have to "watch" the collapse, the collapse is an endpoint and the "transition" is simply an inference on our part.

Contre-example: in classical mechanics, we observe only definite outcomes. Does it mean that collapse is a part of classical mechanics?

Yes, collapse is most definitely part of classical mechanics, there was just no need for the term there because it seemed obvious. But a collapse in classical mechanics is what we've been talking about quite a lot in this thread-- you flip a coin, and don't look. The state of the coin is now mixed, entirely classically. Now look at the coin. The state of the coin is now "collapsed." There is no difference between CI and MWI that is not accessed in flipping a coin.

 

[Hurkyl]

But a collapse in classical mechanics is what we've been talking about quite a lot in this thread-- you flip a coin, and don't look. The state of the coin is now mixed, entirely classically. Now look at the coin. The state of the coin is now "collapsed." There is no difference between CI and MWI that is not accessed in flipping a coin.

In the example I've been trying to consider all thread, the state started mixed, the mixture persisted through the coin flip, and remained after the flip was observed. That's the only behavior of mixtures that classical mechanics supports.

But in the usual way to interpret classical mechanics the state is never mixed. Probabilities that enter into the analysis are measures of ignorance, not of "reality". Classical mechanics is traditionally interpreted as having counter-factual definiteness: it's a hidden variable theory.

I now feel like you never understood the distinction, and you're interpreting all probabilities as ignorance probabilities. (I'd already started getting the impression you were treating parmness as just another word for expressing ignorance )

 

[Hurkyl]

No, it is not "my version." Go look up "scientific method", provide any text you find, and I will gladly point out where the subject/object dichotomy appears in that text. I'm sure you could too. The "subject" is the scientist, the "object" is the experiment.

I know it will talk about scientists and experiments. The controversy is your claim it will not only talk about dichotomy, but it will be built into the very formulation of the method. (and not in a "oh, I can see how one could interpret things that way" fashion but in a "nobody could possibly interpret it any other way")

Now find me some science that doesn't make that dichotomy,

Pick any science you want. I don't know of any field of science asserting the dichotomy, despite your claims of its prevalence.

Because you risk failure.

Er... so what?

No, definiteness is what we perceive.

AFAIK, you are the only person who uses the term that way.

It's fine if you want to use the word that way, but it's not fine when you don't want to listen to how I'm using the word and instead pretend I'm using the word your way.

It is necessary when X has no meaning without O, as in science.

On the hypothesis of consistency of observation, O doesn't need to be stated. If, for some reason, you can't conceive of X without also picturing an O, you can pick any relevant O you want and use that; it doesn't matter which O you pick because all choices work out the same.

 

[Ken G]

In the example I've been trying to consider all thread, the state started mixed, the mixture persisted through the coin flip, and remained after the flip was observed. That's the only behavior of mixtures that classical mechanics supports.

Yes, but this is also a situation that classical mechanics addresses all the time-- mixed states evolving into mixed states. That's "statistical mechanics." It doesn't make any difference to statistical mechanics if the information "actually exists" somewhere, what matters to the physicist is what information they actually have, and how to treat the information they do not have. That's the origin of laws like the second law of thermodynamics, it's perfectly classical.

The classical description of a coin is this. You flip a coin. The information you would need to predict the outcome is not available, so you treat the initial state as mixed. You also treat the final state as mixed. You then look at the coin, and replace the mixed state with a definite state. That's a "collapse", there just wasn't a need to use the term in classical physics, because it was so close to our daily intuition.

Remember, the term "collapse" is used in CI, and CI is an empiricist interpretation, which means that the whole concept of a "state" in the first place is a way the physicist has chosen to address the situation, based on information. (Observations are the reality, not "states.") In CI, there is no difference between reality and information about reality, there is only the requirement that all observers must have consistent perceptions, so they must be manipulating consistent information. That's what "real" is to an empiricist-- consistency of perception. Any "appearance" that is perfectly consistent is not only indistinguishable from what is real, it is what is real. Different people might be looking at different parts of the elephant though, that is no challenge to realism.

Now, the interpretation of that mixed state is something else again. It has no place in the actual calculation, it's just the story we tell ourselves to achieve cognitive resonance. And that story should not invent elaborate world views just to make the mathematics seem cleaner (unless we are rationalists). That is the sole reason why the mixed state outcome used in the actual calculation is interpreted as the electron going into just a single outbound state. The notion of "collapse" of the mixed state was never needed in that interpretation, but it was always there. The deBroglie-Bohm interpretation of QM is the one that preserves that classical interpretation most closely, but CI rejects that because of the requirement that the details of the initial state not only be unknown, but unknowable. In empiricism, that which is empirically unknowable simply doesn't exist, an issue that classical physics did not have to face.

To see all this, just imagine that classical physics had some theorem about the limits of observational precision-- you'd have all the same issues right away, you'd have CI, and deBB-B, and MWI, all purely classical.

I now feel like you never understood the distinction, and you're interpreting all probabilities as ignorance probabilities. (I'd already started getting the impression you were treating parmness as just another word for expressing ignorance )

No, I understand just fine that you interpret mixed states that way, as would any user of MWI. I'm saying why your criticisms of CI are largely around not understanding it-- it's the basic empiricism you don't get. In CI, anything we can say about reality is an expression of information and ignorance. Again: "there is no quantum world."

 

[Dmitry67]

That definition is just precisely what I said-- collapse is simply the detection of a definite state (when quantum formalism indicates a mixed state). That's it, that's a collapse. Nothing about "watching the transition from a superposition to a definite state", there is zero connotation in that definition that we have to "watch" the collapse, the collapse is an endpoint and the "transition" is simply an inference on our part.
Yes, collapse is most definitely part of classical mechanics, there was just no need for the term there because it seemed obvious. But a collapse in classical mechanics is what we've been talking about quite a lot in this thread-- you flip a coin, and don't look. The state of the coin is now mixed, entirely classically. Now look at the coin. The state of the coin is now "collapsed." There is no difference between CI and MWI that is not accessed in flipping a coin.

1 You are taking the second part of the definition, just because you don't like the first part.
2 If wavefunction collapse is a part of classical mechanics, then you are using some kind of alien logic.

 

[Ken G]

In fact, this is a very useful device to contrast CI, MWI, and deBB-B. Just imagine someone adds to the postulates of classical physics another postulate-- that generalized coordinates come with a precision limit that looks just like the HUP. No axiomatic back story to it, no unitarity or Hilbert spaces, just the empirical discovery that measurements have a fundamental inability to create simultaneous precision better than what is specified in the HUP. This would still be what we might call "classical physics", because it has all those postulates, but it just adds this one more.

The reason I say this would still be classical physics is that all the calculations would now be exactly the same. We would predict positions and momenta, subject to the uncertainties in the initial conditions, exactly as is now done. In fact, most of classical physics would be absolutely identical, because HUP-type precisions are generally never obtained in classical physics in the first place, it would be quite an irrelevant added postulate. Until you get to the interpretation, that is-- now we will have exact analogs to CI, MWI, and deBB-B cropping up. So let's look at how each would handle this situation, it will help demystify these interpretations when they are applied to QM.

deBB-B: Let's start here, because this is the closest to the common classical interpretation. The theorem about precision of measurement would be attributed to some limitation we have in probing reality, not to reality itself. So there would "really be" a true initial momentum and position, but we wouldn't have access to it, so we would forced to distribute over our own ignorance, and map that into ignorance of the final state, which we would also not regard as real but only a reflection of our ignorance. The fundamental truth would still be entirely deterministic, but our ability to predict would not. For most applications, this would make no difference, but in chaotic applications like statistical mechanics, it would lead to things like the second law of thermodynamics.

CI: In the strictly empiricist view, there is no difference between a fundamental limit on observational precision, and a fundamental truth about reality. So if we cannot know the initial state to some precision, then there is no initial state to better than that precision. Normally this wouldn't make any difference, for the precision would be limited in the outcome in an unimportant way. But in chaotic applications like statistical mechanics, it would make a huge difference, and force upon us the introduction of the concept of collapse. When the initial uncertainty is not resolvable by our instruments, but it maps into a final uncertainty that is resolvable, then our instruments will detect a final outcome that is not "in" the initial state. This would be purely classical. All the same, we would have the CI interpretation-- a "collapse" must have occurred that we can only track statistically.

MWI: The initial state is already a mixed state, and so are the final states, and they remain so. Since there is no postulate for "collapse", there must not be collapse, and so the mixed states persist and we perceive only a "single world" of the many.

So it's exactly the same choices, and for much the same reasons, just purely classical.

 

[Hurkyl]

I don't think this is analogous at all. All your analogy has is the discovery of a problem with classical mechanics and nothing else. It's missing the essential feature of "Hey, we've figured out new physics, and it tested very well. But upon initial analysis, it doesn't mesh well with anything else we know about physics."

The choices, and especially the motivations in your scenario can't be analogous to the real things.

 

[Ken G]

I don't think this is analogous at all. All your analogy has is the discovery of a problem with classical mechanics and nothing else. It's missing the essential feature of "Hey, we've figured out new physics, and it tested very well. But upon initial analysis, it doesn't mesh well with anything else we know about physics."

On the contrary, the hypothetical theorem I refer to would certainly be viewed as new physics! I'm saying we have all the postulates of classical physics, but it is discovered, to our amazement, that no matter how hard we try, we can never measure x and p to better simultaneous precision than delta x * delta p = h, where the value of h comes as a complete surprise to us. Indeed, it is perfectly possible that it might have gone just like that, well before quantum mechanics, had h been a heck of a lot larger (or our instruments a heck of a lot more precise). That would very definitely be new physics, even without anything about quantized action being found yet, just this constraint on our knowledge of classical systems. I'm saying had that been the case, exactly the same 3 ways of interpreting it would have appeared, and for all the same reasons (empiricists would say there is a collapse, determinists would say there were hidden variables, rationalists would say the ergodic outcomes predicted by the postulates of classical mechanics must actually occur but we don't perceive anything beyond our little h-bin). It's pure historical accident (and the smallness of h) that quantization and wave-particle duality were discovered at the same time as the HUP, so we had QM instead of just a need to re-interpret classical physics.

The point is, this device makes it quite clear what CI, MWI, and deBB-B are saying, independent from the details of QM. Those details have no direct bearing on any of those interpretations, they are all about how empiricist, how deterministic, and how rationalistic is the taste of the interpreter when faced with the impossibility of wrapping up empiricist and deterministic postulates into a nice concise rationalistic structure.

 

[Ken G]

Let me summarize the main things I have argued:

1) there is no scientific difference between CI, MWI, and deBB-B, they all function within the scientific method in exactly the same ways. The differences are purely philosophical, but philosophical differences are nevertheless important to recognize.

2) philosophical insights can be helpful in guiding new theories that differ from QM, such that one of the interpretations might carry over successfully into the new theory.

3) the main philosophical differences center on empiricism (CI) versus rationalism (MWI), since empiricism asserts that we know by perceiving, so we know there is collapse because we perceive it, and rationalism asserts we know by modeling mathematically, so we know there is unitarity (or we think we know, the bugbear of rationalism) by the structure of the most concise and unified version of the postulates. For good measure, we can throw in deBB-B, with its willingness to tolerate some anti-empiricist elements (unperceivable hidden variables) and some anti-rationalist elements (clunky extra postulates) in favor of maintaining classical determinism.

4) If the title of the thread is the "problem" with MWI, then this problem is not that it is internally inconsistent, nor disagrees with observations, because it isn't and it doesn't, it is that it falls through if the postulates of QM are not precisely upheld. Postulates change, but observations don't.

 

[Samshorn]

... the "problem" with MWI... is that it falls through if the postulates of QM are not precisely upheld...

Doesn't this conflict with your comment in the previous post that a precise analog of MWI could be conceived even in the context of classical mechanics? Surely one can always hypothesize a "many worlds" interpretation of ANY theory. In other words, we can always imagine that the world of our experience is embedded in a larger structure consisting of infinitely many such worlds, which do not interact with each other (at least not into the future). In fact, we can imagine this in infinitely many ways. One can argue that QM is more suggestive of such an embedding than some other - past, and possibly future - theories, but it's always possible to construct an MWI of any theory. Obviously the details of any specific MWI would change if the details of the underlying experiential theory changed, but it would still be a MWI. I don't think MWI is falsifiable as an abstract concept.

Your statement above implies that you think the problem with MWI is that, although not presently falsified, it is overly exposed to falsification. That's exactly backwards, isn't it? The optimum theory is the one most exposed to falsification that has not yet been falsified. For example, special relativity is more exposed to falsification than Lorentz's ether interpretation, as a conceptual framework for physics, which is why special relativity is regarded as a stronger (better) framework. The spacetime interpretation has less flexibility than an ether interpretation, and yet is has never (yet) failed.

I would say the problem with MWI (well, one of the problems) is not that it's overly falsifiable, but that it's NOT falsifiable at all. (This isn't the most serious problem with MWI, but it's still serious.)

 

[Ken G]

Doesn't this conflict with your comment in the previous post that a precise analog of MWI could be conceived even in the context of classical mechanics?

Not really, because the same would be said of classical-MWI: it falls through if the postulates of classical mechanics are not also precisely upheld. In other words, I'm not saying that there is something special about quantum postulates, I'm saying there is something special about postulates in the first place. The empiricist view is that all theories are approximate, so none of their postulates should be assumed to hold precisely. One simply should never confuse the map for the territory. Since MWI is never falsifiable, it is only the motivation for it that is falsifiable (the aesthetic structure of the postulates).

Surely one can always hypothesize a "many worlds" interpretation of ANY theory.

Yes, that's completely true, although a "many worlds" interpretation would be sterile unless there is some kind of limit on perception that does not appear in the postulates. The motivation for it is always extreme faith in the postulates, whatever postulates are used, whenever one encounters a limitation in perception that does not appear in them. Perhaps the simplest way to sum up MWI-esque interpretations is the rule "add no postulates simply to acquiesce to what is perceived when a simpler set of postulates is not falsified." That's also the spirit of Tegmark's MUH.

One can argue that QM is more suggestive of such an embedding than some other - past, and possibly future - theories, but it's always possible to construct an MWI of any theory. Obviously the details of any specific MWI would change if the details of the underlying experiential theory changed, but it would still be a MWI. I don't think MWI is falsifiable as an abstract concept.

I agree. It's very hard to say just what it is exactly about QM, rather than any other theory based on postulates, that supports an MWI approach, when no other theory ever did (though it could be argued that Parmenides, 2500 years ago, did in a sense suggest a similar theory, but it was pre-scientific). We certainly encountered lack of complete information in theories before, like in thermodynamics. I think it was the discovery of a fundamental limit on information, the HUP, that is the real source of MWI, hence my simplified version. Rationalist theories won't build in lack of information, they'll just see it as the fault of the perceiver.

Your statement above implies that you think the problem with MWI is that, although not presently falsified, it is overly exposed to falsification. That's exactly backwards, isn't it?

I don't think MWI is falsifiable, I think the postulates that inspire it are. I agree with you that one can always make an MWI interpretation, but will one? If the motivation of MWI is some simple set of postulates, then any compromising of those postulates by observations will defeat the purpose of the MWI interpretation (which was to preserve the postulates in as pristine a form as possible). Now, it should be mentioned that even if the postulates are not exactly true, one might still wish to preserve them in a pristine form as a kind of approximate theory, but rationalism isn't too comfortable with approximate theories either! The issue is not if MWI is "one way to think about QM", any more than it is one way to think about thermodynamics. The issue is whether or not it is true.

The optimum theory is the one most exposed to falsification that has not yet been falsified. For example, special relativity is more exposed to falsification than Lorentz's ether interpretation, as a conceptual framework for physics, which is why special relativity is regarded as a stronger (better) framework. The spacetime interpretation has less flexibility than an ether interpretation, and yet is has never (yet) failed.

I agree that exposure to falsification is indeed a high goal of a theory. I wasn't aware that SR was more easily falsified than LET though, because they both make all the same predictions. I felt SR was favored more on Occam's razor-- if you don't need an aether, why have one? But if SR was proved wrong, and there is an "aether frame", then Lorentz' version would be wrong too. Though you might say he was "closer" in that case-- which is what I mean by different interpretations only really being different in regard to new theories they inspire.

I would say the problem with MWI (well, one of the problems) is not that it's overly falsifiable, but that it's NOT falsifiable at all. (This isn't the most serious problem with MWI, but it's still serious.)

I think we largely agree, but I would point out that neither CI nor deBB-B are falsifiable either, as they are all just inspired by their own philosophical angles (or angels?). Any valid interpretation is no more falsifiable than the theory it interprets. Even though I've been hard on the "world view" inspired by MWI, which frankly seems naive to me despite its sophistication relative to other even more naive world views, I do think it is good to understand all the interpretations, for one never knows where a useful insight might come from.

 

[Fra]

I think this discussion has several facets and issues, and it's hard to discuss them all at once. But somehow the core of the last few posts regards the understanding of the collapse or information update.

I personally think it's slightly confusing to talk about the information updates in "classical mechanics". Because with the exception of thermodynamics classical mechanics really is not an information theory at all.

Maybe it's less confusing to say that the collapse exists in "classical probability" rather than "classical mechanics".

Generally an information update is when prior information is facing the problem of howto account for a new information. One can speak of this in general terms regardless of wether the "information" is encoded in classical commuting structures, or in sets of non-commuting information.

In both cases do we have an prior state that AFTER incorporation of the new information, results in a new prior state. This is generically a "collapse".

In classical logic, there are still several thinking of what the best information update is like. We have bayesian updates, we have max ent updates and other more simple updates. In this process the idea is that you need to WEIGHT your prior state against the new state, and decide that for a given confidence in the new information how much do you allow it to deform your prior?

A simple form of information update is simly to always throw away the oldest datapoints and then recalculate the prior. Other method uses measures to calculate the "probability" that the new information is "right" and then allows it to influence the prior in the same way. This means the information update process possesses inertia.

It's simply not rational to let say a single data point, flip decades of solid experience. It probably takes another decade of deviations to significantly revise the prior here.

So there are two points here... one is to understand that the collapse in the above sense is not specific to SUPERpositions, it's there also with classical mixtures.

The difference is rather in the details of how the information update works. In Newtons mechanics, I think it's confusing to talk about information updates in between marbles etc. Because there exists no decision process in how it's usually understood. In QM OTOH, the "information updates" as seen from an external observer are sort of encoded in the hamiltonians. This is why my analysis unavoidably suggests that the interesting parts of this discussion overlaps with the understaning of interactions and unification.

Here there are of course significant difference between classical and quantum inferences.

This is exactly why in classical statistics (not mechanics) ie. thermodynamics, we actually understand time evolution as related to entropic flows. We need no hamiltonians to do statistical mechanics. The primary thing it he entropy measures. But then we only predict "trivial" decay & diffusion type flows.

When we look at quantum structures where information are composed of non-commuting parts, then this decay type of flow translates into very non-trivial time evolutions (read schrödinger equation).

Of course this thinking is trying to push current physics much deeper. It's the perspective that I see as the core of the discussion but when we avoid it and just try to not change the framework the entire discussion becomes strange.

In a way the unitary evolution of QM, is always known to mathematicallt look almost like diffusion equation, but the similariy is more coincidental and no one every properly undertstood it beyond that. That is what I'm trying to do, and one implication is that just like in classicla mechanics there is a flow just from uncertainty, the SE equation can be understood the same way, except it's significantly more complicated becase where not dealing with simple probability spaces for encoding information.

/Fredrik

 

[Chronos]

Ken, I think you hit the nail on its quantum head. MWI is not falsifiable by any test of which I am aware - which makes it sound more like theology than tautology to me.

 

[Hurkyl]

On the contrary, the hypothetical theorem I refer to would certainly be viewed as new physics! I'm saying we have all the postulates of classical physics, but it is discovered, to our amazement, that no matter how hard we try, we can never measure x and p to better simultaneous precision than delta x * delta p = h, where the value of h comes as a complete surprise to us.

While it would certainly be a place to look for new physics, it's clearly not new physics yet -- it's just an observation. It doesn't make any quantitative predictions that can be tested, there isn't any theory to explain anything, there is just the observation that engineers are consistently having difficulty designing measuring devices that should be theoretically possible according to Newton's laws, and the postulate they will never be able to get past a certain barrier.


QM, on the other hand, has a theory to explain things.

Indeed, it is perfectly possible that it might have gone just like that, well before quantum mechanics, had h been a heck of a lot larger (or our instruments a heck of a lot more precise).

This doesn't sound plausible at all.

There have been a lot of results over the past century that detail, quantify, and empirically confirming a myriad of ways in which nature most definitely does not act as if it was "classical, but with uncertainty and statistics!"

I'm saying had that been the case, exactly the same 3 ways of interpreting it would have appeared, and for all the same reasons

I don't see how the reasons could possibly be the same.

The starting point of MWI, for example, was Everett's research based on the observation that mixtures appear as an emergent property of large quantum systems, thus explicitly providing a potential mechanism by which the quantum mechanical description of large systems could approximate the classical description.


Your hypothetical situation simply doesn't have any of those relevant factors. You need let the Einsteins, Schrödingers, Hilberts, and Plancks of the world have a decade or so to study the observation before you could get to a point where the question of interpretation could possibly become a serious one.

(empiricists would say there is a collapse, determinists would say there were hidden variables, rationalists would say the ergodic outcomes predicted by the postulates of classical mechanics must actually occur but we don't perceive anything beyond our little h-bin).

I disagree on all three counts.

The good empiricists would say "we need to do more experiments" to get more information to help them understand what's going on.

The good rationalists would say "we need to look for new theories that can explain these new results, and still reproduce what we already know!"

(and, of course, they would ideally operate synergistically, rather than totally independently, and many would be both)

 

[Hurkyl]

Perhaps the simplest way to sum up MWI-esque interpretations is the rule "add no postulates simply to acquiesce to what is perceived when a simpler set of postulates is not falsified."

I have no idea how you manage to equate this with "extreme faith in postulates" or "radical rationalism".

Your phrasing is odd, leaving me to suspect you aren't describing MWI-esque interpretation at all. It's usually stated something to the effect of "don't add postulates about something already explained by the other postulates -- especially when your new postulate is that the theory is wrong, but only in an effectively unobservable way".

 

[Fra]

If I may add one thing to this list corresponding to my perspectibe

The good empiricists would say "we need to do more experiments" to get more information to help them understand what's going on.

The good rationalists would say "we need to look for new theories that can explain these new results, and still reproduce what we already know!"

A good information processing gamer who understand a theory as an interaction tool would say:

- We use the CURRENT theory to tell use WHICH experiments to make. Because making experiments is nothing else but choosing your actions. It does not make sense to make every possible experiment. Some experiments are wisest not to make because they threaten our existence. And which this I don't mean human activities, I mean that a system can act "in contradiction" to it's environment in such a way that it gets destabilised.

- The feedback from experiements are nothing buth the environments backreaction onto the observing system(which here is the gamer and scientist all in one). Now the environment will exert on the system a selective pressure to adjust their theory(which rules ther action just like the hamiltonian does) so as to maximize it's chances of survival and continued existence. Those that fail to LEARN, will get outcompeted. So the results of the experiments is used to IMPROVE our theory.

In this picture, it's irrelevant ot ask of a theory is "wrong", becase except for trivial cases a theory is of course wrong most of the time in fact for the simple reason that it's always improving.

So the issue is to howto update and revise the thery in the light of falsification, or equivalencenty in the light of threatening backreaction from the environment. The game is "adapt or die". Soon one realizes that the theory becomes unified with the theory of howto
revise the theory itself; thus this completely does away with the platonic timeless idea of "physical law".

So a theory should not postdict historical observations; a theory should tell us what to expect from the future, and thus which experiments to make. There is a close development between theory and experiment as there always was in physics, but it was never formalized in the way I suggest. Look at the colliders like LHC - such a massive choice isn't made for a random reason. It's dictated by current theory. This is how things work, but why no one takes this seriously enough to see what it implies for the theory itself is amazing. Apparently we need a nutcase to consider that.

/Fredrik

 

[Ken G]

I have no idea how you manage to equate this with "extreme faith in postulates" or "radical rationalism".

Because that exact principle is what underlies the MUH. Now, would you, or would you not, describe MUH as "extreme faith in postulates"?

Your phrasing is odd, leaving me to suspect you aren't describing MWI-esque interpretation at all. It's usually stated something to the effect of "don't add postulates about something already explained by the other postulates -- especially when your new postulate is that the theory is wrong, but only in an effectively unobservable way".

Except that would be quite an incorrect way to frame MWI. There is something that is very clearly not explained in the postulates-- why, if the evolution is unitary, do we perceive an eigenvalue whenever we do a measurement? MWI has nothing to say on that issue, it completely punts it.

 

[Ken G]

The good empiricists would say "we need to do more experiments" to get more information to help them understand what's going on.

The good rationalists would say "we need to look for new theories that can explain these new results, and still reproduce what we already know!"

You are simply confusing "empiricists" and "rationalists" with "experimental physicists" and "theoretical physicists." However, it is perfectly possible for an experimentalist to be a rationalist, and a theorist to be an empiricist.

(and, of course, they would ideally operate synergistically, rather than totally independently, and many would be both)

Obviously experiment and theory are synergistic in science. I'm talking about the philosophical bent that motivates CI and MWI, which has nothing to do with anything you are saying right now.

 

[Eqblaauw]

ok, if you don't like the authority argument and think you have a genius mind that's above all that, (you're the Newton, and the rest is the church) than this message means nothing, that being said, I currently conduct a poll, I've mailed over 70 prominent physicists all having quantum mechanics as (at least) one of there main specialities, none of which I knew their ideas in advance, I asked the following question:

a: I subscribe to the MWI that contains many parallel universes that differentiate during every 'quantum event' (meaning that there are many perhaps an infinite number of copies of everyone that inhibits earth)

b: I subscribe to the MWI that contains many parallel universes that split during every 'quantum event' (meaning that there are many perhaps an infinite number of copies of everyone that inhibits Earth constantly being created)

c: I don't subscribe to a or b, because I think they are both false

d: I don't prefer any of the above

this where the answers (I admit that it's a very small number of answers) (the only answer that I don't mention in the following results is one a, but only to him I didn't added ' meaning that there are many- infinite copies of everyone, so I don't know what he thinks about that) but you can count that as one a if you like

- c/d,
- c,

- d,
- c/d
- c
- d
- c

- c

and one physicist says: I'm sorry but I can't do anything with this, I can't make comments about some theory that doesn't have empiric consequences, it's a believe, and has nothing to do with physics

I can't name any names, because I promised I wouldn't do so unless they would give me there permission, and I didn't asked that directly to any of the people in the poll, but they all earned there marks,

it may be a bit early, but it seams david raub was either misquoted, misleading, or a fraud

 

[Hurkyl]

Because that exact principle is what underlies the MUH. Now, would you, or would you not, describe MUH as "extreme faith in postulates"?
Except that would be quite an incorrect way to frame MWI. There is something that is very clearly not explained in the postulates-- why, if the evolution is unitary, do we perceive an eigenvalue whenever we do a measurement? MWI has nothing to say on that issue, it completely punts it.

Where the heck did you get that idea? Well, maybe I should ask first what you actually mean by your question.

We, of course, don't "perceive an eigenvalue"; we perceive experimental outcomes and consistency of observations. You already agreed that this is consistent with mixed states without insisting on any sort of objective collapse.

The starting point of MWI is that entirely through unitary evolution (two subsystems becoming entangled, and jointly decohering), a mixed state can be produced. Suitable entanglements wold be called measurements, and the decoherence ensures that (for all practical purposes) this description remains stable and reproduces the classical picture.

 

[Hurkyl]

I'm talking about the philosophical bent that motivates CI and MWI, which has nothing to do with anything you are saying right now.

It looked like you were trying to find classical analogies to the details of the interpretation, rather than saying anything on topic about the philosophies. And as I was trying to point out, it is far too soon in your hypothetical for such questions to be seriously considered.

The philosophical bent that motivates my preference for MWI (for me, anyways) is that science is the best way we have for "understanding how the universe behaves". So long as science gives right answers, when science and intuition conflict, science wins. One should disdain the idea of contorting science to conform to one's intuition, philosophy, or prior knowledge.

That's what kills CI for me -- it forces the science through contortions. Among the various variations, the worst contortion is "oh, QM isn't telling us about how the universe behaves. It's just telling us how to manipulate our information." I say it's the worst, because even when taken at face value, it actively opposes the idea that science is the best way we have for "understanding how the universe behaves." But in practice, it's not meant as face value and is really being used to rationalize not thinking about questions of interpretation rather than being used in a constructive manner.


What's an example of it being used in a constructive manner? I mentioned earlier the idea that (in classical mechanics) if we take physical propositions and the logical inferences we can make with them to be the important thing, this leads directly to the idea of setting up a mathematical universe^* whose truth values are subsets of phase space.

I asked on math overflow if there were any corresponding notions for quantum mechanics. The answers were interesting, although I haven't really digested them yet.


*: Meant in the sense of "collection of mathematical objects satisfying the axioms of set theory" rather than "things that are real"

 

[Ken G]

Where the heck did you get that idea? Well, maybe I should ask first what you actually mean by your question.

You didn't answer the first question, about MUH.

We, of course, don't "perceive an eigenvalue"; we perceive experimental outcomes and consistency of observations.

I would agree that is pretty obvious. Yet those outcomes are designated by what name in the theory of quantum mechanics? Eigenvalues. This hardly seems controversial.

You already agreed that this is consistent with mixed states without insisting on any sort of objective collapse.

Yes, it is consistent with mixed states, but we can still admit that we have a perception there, can we not? Can we not even agree that when you read a dial on a measuring device that you are perceiving something? And that something is called an eigenvalue of the operator?

The starting point of MWI is that entirely through unitary evolution (two subsystems becoming entangled, and jointly decohering), a mixed state can be produced.

Actually, that is the ending point of the theory of quantum mechanics. The starting point of MWI is what to make of that mixed state.

 

[Fra]

What's an example of it being used in a constructive manner?

Is ANY _pure_ interpretation supposed to be constructive?

I for one has said I think that the interesting things is where we try to extend current theory, and interpretations just show us directions.

In that sense, how is MWI constructive in solvin open questions? does it suggest any research directions that aim to solve issues in QG, and unification?

I think I've already added how my view is supposed to be constructive, but while it's rooted in CI thinking, it's much more. But then, if we don't add more... what's left? How can an interpretation be constructive?

/Fredrik

 

[Ken G]

It looked like you were trying to find classical analogies to the details of the interpretation, rather than saying anything on topic about the philosophies.

All interpretations are philosophy, so I can't see what distinction you are trying to draw.

And as I was trying to point out, it is far too soon in your hypothetical for such questions to be seriously considered.

How could it be too soon? If that were the physics of the day, that is what would require interpretation (for any but the "shut up and calculate" types, of which I've never actually seen a true example).

The philosophical bent that motivates my preference for MWI (for me, anyways) is that science is the best way we have for "understanding how the universe behaves".

Yes, I get that, you have a philosophical bent which describes what you view the mission of science to be. I'm trying to get you to see that your philosophical bent has a well-known name, it is called rationalism. What's more, your rationalism is relatively untempered, as is generally true for anyone who takes MWI seriously.

One should disdain the idea of contorting science to conform to one's intuition, philosophy, or prior knowledge.

That is the claim I am trying to get you to see the inconsistency in. Because that is just exactly what you are doing when you adopt MWI, you are contorting science to conform to your rationalistic intuition that the truth corresponds to the most straightforward interpretation of the mathematical postulates, rather than the empiricist intuition that the truth corresponds to the most straightforward interpretation of our consistent perceptions. Rationalism sees observations as the only ways we can check theories despite their limitations, empiricism sees theories as approximate and limited yet unifying ways to understand observations.

That's what kills CI for me -- it forces the science through contortions. Among the various variations, the worst contortion is "oh, QM isn't telling us about how the universe behaves. It's just telling us how to manipulate our information."

But don't you see, what you call a "contortion" is very simply an axiom of all empiricism. Indeed, those who tend to see science as primarily an empirical discipline would say that all any theory can ever do is "tell us how to manipulate our information." The very fact that you see that mindset as a distasteful contortion is the clearest possible proof that you are a die-hard rationalist. I don't think there's any crime in that, because I think the "rationalist hat" is where all theories come from. I merely point out the historical record about the dangers of taking that rationalistic hat too literally.

What's an example of it being used in a constructive manner? I mentioned earlier the idea that (in classical mechanics) if we take physical propositions and the logical inferences we can make with them to be the important thing, this leads directly to the idea of setting up a mathematical universe^* whose truth values are subsets of phase space.

There's no doubt it's fruit for useful discussions and even insights-- as long as one does not take it too literally, for that requires entering into a form of naivete.

 

[Hurkyl]

You didn't answer the first question, about MUH.

I don't have anything to say about MUH. *shrug* There's a erason why I

I would agree that is pretty obvious. Yet those outcomes are designated by what name in the theory of quantum mechanics? Eigenvalues. This hardly seems controversial.

An eigenvalue is just a number, a label; there is nothing all that special about it. The particular number isn't even all that special -- measuring "3X+7" is effectively the same thing as measuring "X". You've seemed to put some emphasis on it specifically being an eigenvalue, which I don't understand.

Each outcome corresponds to some subset of the state space of the measuring device. Each observer perception corresponds to some subset of the state space of the observer.

A measurement is an interaction between the measuring device and a system. If the system is in an eigenstate, the measuring device transitions^* from some state in the "unmeasured" class to some state in the appropriate class. (this is enough to work out how it should behave for any state, so long as the system and the measuring device start out essentially independent of each other)

*: This is true in the thermodynamic sense -- things could still go wrong with very low probability

 

[Ken G]

You've seemed to put some emphasis on it specifically being an eigenvalue, which I don't understand.

I put no emphasis on the label "eigenvalue," I put emphasis on two things:
1) we perceive definite outcomes of observations
2) the theory of quantum mechanics has a name, and a prescription, for referring to those definite outcomes, and that name is eigenvalue and that prescription involves associating measurements with operators. So #1 is what we perceive, and #2 is how we attempt to understand and unify those perceptions. No interpretations yet.

Each outcome corresponds to some subset of the state space of the measuring device. Each observer perception corresponds to some subset of the state space of the observer.

That depends on what you mean by the "state space of the observer." If by that, you mean, all the things that the observer is perceiving, then I agree with you. If you mean by that a one-to-one correspondence with the state space of the measuring device, that is exactly what I am saying an empiricist would never allow. The observer state is a state of perception, not a subset of a larger space that is not perceived. Empiricism would always view such a larger space as comprising of angels doing a nice little dance on a pin.

 

[Samshorn]

I wasn't aware that SR was more easily falsified than LET though, because they both make all the same predictions. I felt SR was favored more on Occam's razor-- if you don't need an aether, why have one? But if SR was proved wrong, and there is an "aether frame", then Lorentz' version would be wrong too.

It’s true that the Lorentzian ether interpretation and the spacetime interpretation are empirically equivalent for all presently known phenomena, but they stand differently in regard to falsifiability in the face of any future phenomena that might be discovered. In the etheristic interpretation, Lorentz invariance represents a large number of independent coincidental facts: electromagnetism happens to be Lorentz invariant, the strong nuclear force happens to be Lorentz invariant, mechanical inertia of every known elementary particle happens to be Lorentz invariant, and so on. There is no conceptual link between these (once the electromagnetic view of the world was ruled out), so for any new class of phenomena that might be discovered, the ether interpretation really gives no warrant to believe it would be Lorentz invariant. The ether can be given whatever properties it needs to conform with any new facts. Indeed this was Lorentz’s professed reason for continuing to prefer his interpretation. He said we shouldn’t relinquish the language of an absolute rest frame, because we might need it some day. In contrast, the spacetime interpretation takes all those coincidences and removes them from the individual phenomena, and accounts for them in terms of the Minkowskian structure of spacetime itself. In this interpretation, any new particle or interaction that might be discovered tomorrow is constrained to be (at least locally) Lorentz invariant. The only way the spacetime interpretation is viable is if (local) Lorentz invariance is universal and complete. If it fails for any phenomenon, then the single unified spacetime interpretation fails, and we must go back to treating the Lorentz invariance (or lack thereof) of each phenomena as an independent fact, as it is in the ether interpretation. It’s in this sense that the spacetime interpretation is much more exposed to falsifiability than is the etheristic interpretation. Think of all the new phenomena, interactions, and particles that have been discovered subsequent to 1905, not to mention the increase in the range of parameters explored by experiment. Any one of these new classes of phenomena or observations might have been found to violate (local) Lorentz invariance (think CERN neutrinos...) and rendered the spacetime interpretation unviable, but none of them did – not even the entanglement aspects of QM. But the Lorentzian framework would not have been invalidated by whatever might have been found.

I'm not saying that there is something special about quantum postulates, I'm saying there is something special about postulates in the first place. The empiricist view is that all theories are approximate, so none of their postulates should be assumed to hold precisely.

But it isn’t necessary for any particular set of postulates to hold precisely in order for someone to espouse an MWI interpretation, is it? I think we agree that one could have an MWI of virtually any theory, so revising the postulates of QM wouldn’t necessarily drive someone away from MWI.

The question of whether we insist that our current theory is precisely correct, or whether we acknowledge that our current theory may be subject to future revision, is separate from the question of whether a many-worlds interpretation is useful or sensible. I think the espousal of MWI doesn’t necessarily commit someone to the position that the postulates of QM are precisely correct, nor does it imply that they would have to abandon MWI if/when the postulates of QM were revised.

Since MWI is never falsifiable, it is only the motivation for it that is falsifiable (the aesthetic structure of the postulates).

I agree that if the experiential theory (in this case, QM) changed, it is conceivable that the revised theory might give people less – or more – motivation to think in terms of MWI. For example, Deutch thinks we could perceive the other worlds after all, and he would take this as proof positive of the reality of the many worlds. This would entail a revision of QM, but would actually (according to Deutsch) increase our motivation for MWI. Of course, one could also imagine changes to QM that would make MWI seem less plausible. So the fact that the postulates of QM might be revised at some point doesn’t really argue univocally either way, for or against MWI, because as a conceptual framework it has none of the rigidity of, say, the spacetime interpretation of special relativity. It is much more akin to an ether theory, that could accommodate any set of observations.

It's very hard to say just what it is exactly about QM, rather than any other theory based on postulates, that supports an MWI approach, when no other theory ever did (though it could be argued that Parmenides, 2500 years ago, did in a sense suggest a similar theory, but it was pre-scientific).

I agree that it’s interesting to consider what motivates the MWI approach, and whether some experiential theories give more motivation than others, or if it is just an accident of fashion. Throughout history, people have contemplated the notion that the world of our experience is just one of many “possible worlds”, along with the ancient idea that every mathematical form has physical meaning. Ideas like this have been around forever. Remember Leibniz discussing what sounds a lot like the principle of least action (his Born rule), asserting that we live in “the best of all possible worlds”, which is quite similar to how many modern advocates of MWI conceive of things, i.e., possible worlds rather than actual worlds.

The notion of multiple possible worlds (and counterfactual definiteness, etc) arises in any theory based on differential equations. Newton and his contemporaries were acutely aware of this “deficiency” in any such theory, and some even argued that Newton’s “mathematical principles” were non-scientific and vacuous, complaining that a theory such as Newton’s tells us nothing that is not already implicit in the initial conditions, which must be put in by hand. It’s difficult for us to grasp this today, but when the idea of a differential equation representing a physical theory was new, it was not immediately accepted as even accomplishing anything. The equations of Newtonian mechanics may be said to imply a giant phase space, within which our universe is represented by a single trajectory, so it is a superb descriptive tool, but the theory doesn’t tell us WHICH trajectory in this enormous phase space is THE trajectory of THE universe, which is what many people regarded as the main task of a theory of natural philosophy. In Newton’s theory we have to specify a full set of initial conditions, sufficient to fully define everything of interest (per Laplace’s vision of determinism). This specification provides nearly ALL the information of the theory, and yet it is purely ad hoc and separate from the differential equations that supposedly define the theory. This could easily lead someone to eschew the task of specifying THE trajectory, and simply take the equations themselves as the entire theory, which entails ALL possible trajectories within the phase space. This certainly yields a more symmetrical and less ad hoc interpretation... but it's also sterile and pointless.

We certainly encountered lack of complete information in theories before, like in thermodynamics. I think it was the discovery of a fundamental limit on information, the HUP, that is the real source of MWI...

I agree that the inherent uncertainty in QM is what leads to the extra motivation for MWI. The key difference between Newtonian mechanics and quantum mechanics (for motivating MWI) is that in Newtonian mechanics the equations of motion range only over the set of observable states, so there is no ambiguity when translating from the variables in the equations to the measures of our experience, whereas in quantum mechanics the equations of motion range over the set of superpositions of observable states. People tried hard to avoid this, and to come up with equations that range only over observable states, but eventually it came to be seen as an impossible task. Quantum phenomena apparently cannot be modeled effectively except by equations that range over superpositions of observable states. This means that an extra step is required when going from the variables of the equations of motion to an actual observed outcome. This is the “collapse of the wave function”, in accord with the Born rule, and the special challenge for interpreting quantum mechanics is how to conceive of this extra step, selecting just one trajectory through phase space, and calling it OUR trajectory. But this is not really as different as it might seem from the extra step that is required in Newtonian clockwork mechanics, i.e., the stipulation of initial conditions, which essentially represents a collapse from the set of all possible trajectories down to the single trajectory that we experience. The difference is that Newtonian mechanics requires only one “collapse” step, because for any given exact specification of the state, the equations of motion give exact specifications of all subsequent (and prior!) observable states. Hence we never need to repeat the collapse step, and we can set aside the single collapse step and not worry about it too much. In contrast, because of the inherent uncertainty in QM, after stipulating an initial state, the equations of motion lead to a superposition, and even if we stipulate an observation and update our state, the equations of motion again lead to a superposition, and so on. Thus we encounter the need for collapse repeatedly, making it more difficult to ignore. But it isn’t a qualitative difference, it’s just a quantitative difference, relative to the collapse required in Newtonian mechanics.

Ultimately I think a MWI is no more useful for QM than it is for Newtonian mechanics. We can always imagine that the world of our experience is embedded in a larger structure of other worlds, but if this imagined embedding doesn’t tell us anything new about the world of our experience, then it’s pointless.

 

[Ken G]

I understand and agree with much of what you are saying. These are the points I found particularly insightful:

The ether can be given whatever properties it needs to conform with any new facts. Indeed this was Lorentz’s professed reason for continuing to prefer his interpretation. He said we shouldn’t relinquish the language of an absolute rest frame, because we might need it some day.

Any one of these new classes of phenomena or observations might have been found to violate (local) Lorentz invariance (think CERN neutrinos...) and rendered the spacetime interpretation unviable, but none of them did – not even the entanglement aspects of QM. But the Lorentzian framework would not have been invalidated by whatever might have been found.

Yes, I take your point now about "flexibility" as not necessarily such a good thing for an interpretation to have.

Throughout history, people have contemplated the notion that the world of our experience is just one of many “possible worlds”, along with the ancient idea that every mathematical form has physical meaning. Ideas like this have been around forever. Remember Leibniz discussing what sounds a lot like the principle of least action (his Born rule), asserting that we live in “the best of all possible worlds”, which is quite similar to how many modern advocates of MWI conceive of things, i.e., possible worlds rather than actual worlds.

Yes, it's hard to come with an idea that hasn't been anticipated in some way!

It’s difficult for us to grasp this today, but when the idea of a differential equation representing a physical theory was new, it was not immediately accepted as even accomplishing anything. The equations of Newtonian mechanics may be said to imply a giant phase space, within which our universe is represented by a single trajectory, so it is a superb descriptive tool, but the theory doesn’t tell us WHICH trajectory in this enormous phase space is THE trajectory of THE universe, which is what many people regarded as the main task of a theory of natural philosophy. In Newton’s theory we have to specify a full set of initial conditions, sufficient to fully define everything of interest (per Laplace’s vision of determinism). This specification provides nearly ALL the information of the theory, and yet it is purely ad hoc and separate from the differential equations that supposedly define the theory. This could easily lead someone to eschew the task of specifying THE trajectory, and simply take the equations themselves as the entire theory, which entails ALL possible trajectories within the phase space. This certainly yields a more symmetrical and less ad hoc interpretation... but it's also sterile and pointless.

Excellent points. I have long recognized that physics is lacking a "theory of initial conditions", but I hadn't appreciated what a seed change it was to have to think in terms of differential equations for those who were used to seeking the "proper place" of things, the "natural outcomes" that ought to transcend initial details.

This is the “collapse of the wave function”, in accord with the Born rule, and the special challenge for interpreting quantum mechanics is how to conceive of this extra step, selecting just one trajectory through phase space, and calling it OUR trajectory. But this is not really as different as it might seem from the extra step that is required in Newtonian clockwork mechanics, i.e., the stipulation of initial conditions, which essentially represents a collapse from the set of all possible trajectories down to the single trajectory that we experience.

Indeed, it is no different at all if one adopts deBB-B, it is more or less the driving purpose of deBB-B to maintain that classical structure. How ironic, the same element that was so unsatisfactory to so many when the differential equation concept was originally introduced, is now the driving feature of one of the main interpretations of QM!

Ultimately I think a MWI is no more useful for QM than it is for Newtonian mechanics. We can always imagine that the world of our experience is embedded in a larger structure of other worlds, but if this imagined embedding doesn’t tell us anything new about the world of our experience, then it’s pointless.

This is also my main objection to MWI, and it seems to center on our desire to make "the world of our experience" the primary target of doing science. That's why I stress the fundamental empiricism in our stance here-- I can easily see that those who want to make "the world of mathematical concepts" the primary target of science, the rationalists, would not share our emphasis here.

The one point you made that I still disagree with is:

The question of whether we insist that our current theory is precisely correct, or whether we acknowledge that our current theory may be subject to future revision, is separate from the question of whether a many-worlds interpretation is useful or sensible. I think the espousal of MWI doesn’t necessarily commit someone to the position that the postulates of QM are precisely correct, nor does it imply that they would have to abandon MWI if/when the postulates of QM were revised.

I don't think MWI-enthusiasts like MWI because of its many-worlds element, which you are quite right they could preserve in any theory, they only like it because of the simplicity and generality of the unitarity postulate, and the many worlds just come along for the ride. If unitarity were broken in observations, I think the rationalists in the MWI camp would jump ship immediately. They would of course look for a new set of postulates with the same unifying power, as physics requires, and taking those new postulates literally (as rationalists are apt to do) might lead them to adopt even more bizarre constructs than the many worlds to embrace the new postulates. But in this sense, the MWI camp actually has a less flexible and more falsifiable stance than either CI or deBB-B-- if unitarity were broken, they would consider MWI to be falsified, whereas CI already thinks unitarity is broken in the act of perception so it wouldn't care much if it were broken in the other postulates, and deBB-B is happy with anything that preserves strict determinism, regardless of whether it is unitary or not. It is harder to falsify empiricism or determinism, when they are taken as axioms, than it is to falsify unitarity, which is the crux of MWI.

Still, I don't think minimal flexibility is the most important design characteristic of a scientific interpretation. It's an important one, as is Occam's Razor, but to me the most important one of all goes something like "don't use the postulates of a theory to build a world view, use observations for that", because the postulates change but the observations don't. So I don't object to MWI when it is framed as "an interesting way to look at the theory of quantum mechanics", I object to it when framed as "a surprising aspect of reality."

 

[nazarbaz]

The real issue in this debate is the status of the mathematical language in scientific research. Does any chunk of coherent mathematics have the right to make ontological claims ? Or is it properly the mission of science to decide what mathematical models fits the data and would enable us to understand the true nature of matter and the way it is made, even if it is continually delayed ?
The relation between the subject and the object is the cornerstone of all the theories of knowledge since Kant. Although I am not sure we can call it a "dichotomy", since we all aim to gain some knowledge from the practice of science or thought. Science is a set of methodologies to deal with the observable world, not to admire coherent mathematical hypothesis.

 

[Ken G]

Spoken like a true empiricist! And I agree that "dichotomy" might be too strong a word for the subject/object separation, it's more like a "necessary pretense" in order to apply the axioms of the scientific method. In my opinion, when science finally figures out a good way to include the physicist in the physics, it will be a revolution akin to the development of the scientific method itself. It could be argued that the scientific method as we know it today really stemmed more from the demonstrable empiricism that is so central to medicine, rather than from more rationalistic natural philosophy, and perhaps the new physics, that includes the physicist, will stem from neurology or psychology, rather than physics itself. That's just speculative of course-- at the moment, I don't think we really have any kind of reasonable way to avoid the subject/object separation that is the cornerstone of empiricism.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

I've been staying on the sidelines, careful to not break the flow with my less-than-knowledgeable input, but I just have to ask:

If MWI purports that for every collapse event a new universe is spawned, why would our own universe seem to have a long history starting with a BB? Seems contradictory.

Or if MWI considers that there are multiple worlds that are all sort of similar sharing their part of each outcome (each observed eigenvalue), how on Earth could the worlds be coordinated over time? How could each have a "me" flipping a coin or observing a collapsed value, when after some n number of generations of collapses each world would have vastly differing observers and observation events? This view seems impossible.

Neither makes any sense to me, so perhaps one of you gents can straighten me out.

Late edit: Broke two rules above: never post when exhausted, and read the darn wiki first. Sorry; pls ignore.
...

PS Ken G, here's hoping I get the time to start a thread here on d'Espagnat's "The Quantum Theory and Reality" and see how that meshes/messes with your fine empiricist outlook (which I'd like to subscribe to, but gets fuzzy when dear Bernard raises his objections, iirc). Mebbe you can start the thread, seeing as how you don't have to run upstairs and serve beers like I do.

 

[Ken G]

If MWI purports that for every collapse event a new universe is spawned, why would our own universe seem to have a long history starting with a BB?

I wouldn't say a new universe is spawned, it's just that the one universe fragments more and more with time (by "fragment" I mean "spawns incoherent islands that have no further influence on each other"). So it's rather like a river forking over and over-- it still all traces back to the same upstream watershed. We are like an ant floating on a log that takes, seemingly at random, a certain fork each time, but the rest of the river is still there, and all branches share a consistent history up until they forked off.

How could each have a "me" flipping a coin or observing a collapsed value, when after some n number of generations of collapses each world would have vastly differing observers and observation events?

There wouldn't necessarily be any "me" in many of the forks, if I died in some of them, or if I changed so much that it was no longer recognizable as me. Indeed, it seems to me that "I" would only ever be in one of the worlds anyway, but that depends on what is meant by "me"-- this is one criticism I have of MWI, it requires a "model of me" that sounds an awful lot like CI-type collapse if you're not careful. MWI goes to a lot of trouble to maintain unitarity in the universe, but it can never maintain the unitarity of "me", unless "I" am just a projection of something else. How can a projection think for itself? What happens to "I think therefore I am"? There's very little left in MWI of anything I can call "me" without invoking the very collapse that MWI seeks to avoid. This certainly doesn't make MWI wrong, but it shows why I can call it a "radical" form of rationalism.

Indeed, my latest insight into all this interpretation business is that interpretations are kind of like gedankexperiments. Many people seem to think gedankenexperiments are a way to achieve understanding of reality without leaving their armchairs, but you can't understand reality that way, you can only understand a particular theory that way. Gedankenexperiments are ways of probing theories, only real experiments can probe reality. All the same, they are very valuable for understanding theories, and no one would ever "object" to any gedanken on the grounds that a different one is "better." When we look at our theories, we should look at them from all angles, and so we should address all the gedankenexperiments, as well as all the viable interpretations. We just shouldn't imagine we are learning about reality when we do that-- we are learning about our theories.

To the extent that the theories work well, however, we must be accessing some kind of truth about reality via the theories, but it's not a world view we are getting, it's just some kind of taste of the truth, or insight that fits in our heads rather than the actual truth. Maybe every interpretation has some kind of valid lesson about reality to teach us, even though they only help us understand what our theories are saying. Most likely only one (or zero) will survive the next theory, but even so the lesson of each is learned all the same, and captures some shadow of the reality or it wouldn't have been a valid interpretation of a good theory in the first place.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

I wouldn't say a new universe is spawned, it's just that the one universe fragments more and more with time (by "fragment" I mean "spawns incoherent islands that have no further influence on each other"). So it's rather like a river forking over and over-- it still all traces back to the same upstream watershed. We are like an ant floating on a log that takes, seemingly at random, a certain fork each time, but the rest of the river is still there, and all branches share a consistent history up until they forked off.

OK, but aren't the branches happening in a considerably large number of events all across the cosmos, or is the idea only related to observers "forcing" a collapse? If the former, isn't all of spacetime forking at extraordinarily frequent intervals? As for the later, this seems related to the MWI counter-argument against it violating conservation of energy, but in either case it seems to my poor imagination that such a vast replication of matter and energy couldn't go on for long, at least not until an third inexhaustible source from which all branching draws substance were found. (Meaning it seems unlikely; no suggestion of things religious.)

There wouldn't necessarily be any "me" in many of the forks, if I died in some of them, or if I changed so much that it was no longer recognizable as me. Indeed, it seems to me that "I" would only ever be in one of the worlds anyway, but that depends on what is meant by "me"-- this is one criticism I have of MWI, it requires a "model of me" that sounds an awful lot like CI-type collapse if you're not careful. MWI goes to a lot of trouble to maintain unitarity in the universe, but it can never maintain the unitarity of "me", unless "I" am just a projection of something else. How can a projection think for itself? What happens to "I think therefore I am"? There's very little left in MWI of anything I can call "me" without invoking the very collapse that MWI seeks to avoid. This certainly doesn't make MWI wrong, but it shows why I can call it a "radical" form of rationalism.

I think I agree, methinks.

Indeed, my latest insight into all this interpretation business is that interpretations are kind of like gedankexperiments. Many people seem to think gedankenexperiments are a way to achieve understanding of reality without leaving their armchairs, but you can't understand reality that way, you can only understand a particular theory that way. Gedankenexperiments are ways of probing theories, only real experiments can probe reality. All the same, they are very valuable for understanding theories, and no one would ever "object" to any gedanken on the grounds that a different one is "better." When we look at our theories, we should look at them from all angles, and so we should address all the gedankenexperiments, as well as all the viable interpretations. We just shouldn't imagine we are learning about reality when we do that-- we are learning about our theories.

To the extent that the theories work well, however, we must be accessing some kind of truth about reality via the theories, but it's not a world view we are getting, it's just some kind of taste of the truth, or insight that fits in our heads rather than the actual truth. Maybe every interpretation has some kind of valid lesson about reality to teach us, even though they only help us understand what our theories are saying. Most likely only one (or zero) will survive the next theory, but even so the lesson of each is learned all the same, and captures some shadow of the reality or it wouldn't have been a valid interpretation of a good theory in the first place.

Well, this last is something you've been pointing out a bit, and it certainly is pertinent to those like me who wish for proper world views, when all we have to rely on are the facts on the one hand and our fancies on the other. Certainly at a basic level, of course, the simple theories required for survival and evolution work well enough we may be confident of a close mapping to reality. As for much of the esoteric rest, everything is defined by everything else and all definitions become circular after a while, so a complete world view can only be something perhaps as simple as "it is."

There's a cautionary tale, as well, in steering clear of overarching theories than span too many domains, as is often the case in social science and, er, politics and religion (Color commentary, not intended to divert the thread.)

 

[Ken G]

OK, but aren't the branches happening in a considerably large number of events all across the cosmos, or is the idea only related to observers "forcing" a collapse?

There isn't any collapse, there's just decohering islands. Basically, there isn't enough information in the initial state to maintain all the coherences that would be required as more and more subsystems interact, so coherences are restricted to tiny subspaces called "worlds." When there's no coherences, there's no crosstalk, so there's no influences either, the branches don't affect each other. But they also cannot perceive each other, they are angels on each other's pins. And yes, the number of such branches is truly spectacular.

As for much of the esoteric rest, everything is defined by everything else and all definitions become circular after a while, so a complete world view can only be something perhaps as simple as "it is."

Yes, it's hard to imagine we can really do better than that. It's fine to "run with the ball", but we must also keep in mind the dangers of taking ourselves too seriously.